Things like…is this minimum wage job really worth it?
Was all that cramming’ for tomorrow’s history test
really just a colossal waste of time now?
Would I ever get the chance to apologize to my sister
for the fight we had just before I left for work?

Funny how a little brass casing can hit the
big RESET button on priorities and belief systems,
and suddenly wipe away years of decision making
and absolute certainty. Suddenly, God doesn’t seem
so far removed anymore. And does He still barter?

And how ‘bout you, Mr. Gunman,
what’s a 16 year old’s Life truly worth?

I’m stretching the parameters again here – I recently lost a close friend to cancer. It may not be the worst thing to ever happen to me, but for the moment it tops the list.

Mixtape

I know it’s a misnomer
because no one uses tape anymore,
but you would know what I mean.
Like me, you still remembered cassettes,
record players, VCRs and dial phones.

Of course I meant a CD I burned
with some of your favorite tunes
by artists we grew up with –
The Beatles, Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel.

I tried to make it a tasteful mix –
uplifting songs, reflective ones –
“Bridge over Troubled Water”,
“Here Comes the Sun”, that kind of thing,

stuff I knew you liked. I hope it consoled
your friends and family when I played it
at the viewing, but what matters to me most
is that I know you’d approve, that these
are the songs we’d listen to on your deck
on a summer evening, beers in hand,
watching the last reds fade from the sky.

I had a tough time with this one, as I hope the following will explain…

g

——————————–
PRETTY LUCKY
G. Smith (BMI)
—-–————————–
Looking back over most of my years,
I’ve had my share of sorrow amd tears,
But I’ve not had to face the worst of my fears,
I guess I’ve been pretty lucky.

‘Cause I’ve known folks who’s lives have been shaken,
Had loved ones hurt or tragically taken,
Their hearts so broken and then left forsaken;
Yeah, I guess I’ve been pretty lucky.

The glass, I guess, I see half-filled,
“Poor, poor me,” I think until,
I realize, through another’s eyes,
I look pretty lucky.

I’ve lost jobs, and family and friends,
And I’ve lost love, but in the end,
Looking back, I know I’ve been,
Pretty dog-gone lucky,

‘Cause the worst things that’ve happened to me,
Are the same kinds of sadnesses everyone sees;
I guess it’s all a matter of degrees;
And I’ve been pretty lucky.

Yeah, the glass, I guess, I see half-filled,
“Poor, poor me,” I think until,
I realize, through another’s eyes,
I look pretty lucky.

I love this one. This makes me think of those poems people like to carry around in their pocket and recite at Holiday parties or Toastmasters or receptions. I hope you do something with it to bring it into the public more.

what can one say? why share the “worst things?” I am not quite sure – to rip what is at best after all these years, a diaphanous veil, exposing to the air – those closed away and shuttered mementoes visceral soul piercing mementos that flow like a running river or beat like a pulsing heart beneath our words? Why? Certainly not for the acknowledgment of the awe inspiring capacity of humans to not only survive but to thrive – to continue to love when denigrated and abused to continue to hope having had hope cruelly snatched away – to simply continue? Why write of this? Certainly not simply to “know” one another deeper and more authentically? All of the foregoing are possible reasons for this prompt and for the pain that pours through “The Street,” all the offered embrace and the naked exposure evident of the trust formed over time among those eho have shared their words… The worst thing has not happened to sny of us yet – the worst thing would be the absence of compassion and the lack of either ability or desire to respond to a fellow sufferer – the worst thing to have no words , thought, remembered, expressed, shared, or the searing secondary pain felt, followed by the passionate desire to ease the pain of another. We, in my humble opinion have not experienced the worst thing, the inhumanity of unrelenting indifference to self and for each other, It is a privilege to live and a promise of possibility to continue to feel and to hope for peace of mind for oneself and others on this “Street” and on the spinning blue often crying in pain marble which we share,

PLEASE DISREGARD THIS POORLY WRITTEN – upon opening my eyes comment… I tried to do a bit better at my own blog… With wishes that there was a DELETE option…. enjoy the weekend – I would be delighted if you choose to visit my blog to read a slightly more coherent comment to this week’s prompt…

The worst thing
Was not the fire,
The weeks in the hospital,
Or the scars left behind.
The worst thing
Was not the secret
I was forced to keep,
The time spent without
The most basic necessities,
Or the bullying taunts
About out of date clothes
That reeked of kerosene.
The worst thing
Was not the betrayal of trust,
The bruises on body and soul,
The pain twisting through my life,
Or the loss of my independence.

The worst thing that ever happened to me…
I stopped believing in myself.

Clearly, I will need to change plans tonight—
and how far out in the future?
Cancel weekend getaway?
Drop out of improv troupe?
Invest in titanium bones?
I try to catch my breath.

You know that experience when you’re in pain
and you can remember just minutes before
when you were not, and time just
went its way with you—then here is this:
a demarcation coming so clear, wondrous,
strange fault line between just then and here now.

I sit cringing behind a running car
with the curb’s urine scent and rotate this
in tiny, dented circles and try to catch my breath.
The sidewalk is a blessing to us sitting dizzy,
and to me it’s a blessing that I know how to sit
and face the truth of this moment. Injured.

Outside a café, I press ice around this and
try to catch my breath and catch it again.
Minutes ago, I was having a walk.
Now I can’t figure how much is wrecked.
Guzzle the soda water I bought,
watch the minutes go, wonder when I’ll be missed.

I wasn’t going to write my story
The tale is gruesome, but so are others
Sometimes it seems too simply gory
His hand grew larger as it tried to smother

The tale is gruesome, but so are others
His body, a steel plank, on top of mine
His hand grew larger as it tried to smother
He drove himself up toward my spine

His body, a steel plank, on top of mine
I prayed Hail Mary as his fingers gripped
He drove himself up toward my spine
With a cry to sweet Jesus, the scales then tipped
I
prayed Hail Mary as his fingers gripped
A man I loved did a Jekyll and Hyde
With a cry to sweet Jesus, the scales then tipped
Now a chasm betwixt, the great divide

A man I loved did a Jekyll and Hyde
Sometimes it seems too simply gory
Now a chasm betwixt, the great divide
I wasn’t going to write my story

I thought that the pain of leaving you,
Would have been the worst thing.

But I was wrong.
It came like another nightmare –

My right arm numbed like ice,
Ripped from a winter river.
The unthinkable, the unknowable,
Plumed far off like a tornado,
Out of the red box of hell.
Then,
Ripped through my body
Like a raging animal,
Trying to stay alive.

STUFF HAPPENS
No more than a pebble
inside the edge of a sandal
that refuses to leave. One more block
and the next, nothing works. Finally

stopping to sit on a bench, delayed . . . can’t tarry
too long, removing the obstruction,
still takes too much time, but who knows
the upper limits of pain you suffer
until you are paralyzed and cannot move
better this way

so you get there.
What’s five minutes in a lifetime
of all the years you get to spend
you say expecting an amused smile
but no

a frown, looking at the clock above
the desk reminds you punctuality
is a virtue you cannot underestimate—
excused for the meantime, marked down
for future reference

consider this a learning experience recall
where you are going, look for the details
that cross your path. The next time you
set foot that nothing interferes to hold back
your daily rounds.

UPCOMING BOOT CAMP

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